Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 16:13:32 -0800
From: "Ingri Cassel"
Organization: Vaclib
Many of my future emails will be coming from Sheri Nakken --a full-time
activist....
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If you would like, you can comment on this piece of tripe by writing to
newsonline@bbc.co.uk. Sheri
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_981000/981452.stm
From BBC News
Friday, 20 October, 2000, 11:28 GMT 12:28 UK
How vaccines are made
Mass manufacture of poliovirus vaccine started in the
1950s
Many people would be surprised at the
animal-based ingredients scientists must use
to mass-produce vaccines.
The new scare over poliovirus vaccines made
using calf foetuses could draw attention to
what goes on behind the scenes.
Vaccines have undoubtedly been one of the
greatest triumphs of medicine, pushing back
feared diseases like smallpox and polio, and
threatening to do the same to killers such as
meningitis.
Patients see a clear liquid in a syringe - but
back in the laboratory a wide variety of
complex processes are used to make it, many
incorporating cells or body chemicals which
originate from the animal kingdom.
But scientists are adamant that a long history
of using such materials has produced no health
problems as a result.
There are two ways in which animal material is
used to make vaccines.
The first is the use of animal cells as
"nurseries" for the modified viruses doctors
want to use as the main ingredient of a
vaccine.
Chicks and monkeys
The scientist has to find a cell in which the
virus in question will replicate to produce more
copies of itself.
Scientists have "cell lines" - immortal cells that
can keep on dividing indefinitely, derived
originally from a variety of sources, including
monkeys, hamsters, or from human foetuses.
Some viruses - such as
the flu virus - can be
cultured within chick
foetus cells.
However, this active
process may need a
little encouragement,
such as supplies of
glucose for energy, and
other chemicals.
The cells are bathed in
a "soup" made up of
these ingredients, and frequently include other
organic chemicals such as growth factors,
which can help the cells to develop.
Although human growth factors can be
extracted, these do not provide as reliable
results as other factors, such as foetal calf
serum, which is widely used.
It is this chemical which is at the centre of the
current scare over poliovirus vaccine.
'Bovril for cells'
Dr Deborah Scopes, a spokesman for the
British Society of Immunology, said: "This is
like Bovril for cells.
"It's a big broth which helps growth."
Once sufficient numbers of the virus have been
replicated, the manufacturers use complex
filtration and purification processes to try to
remove everything but the viruses from the
vaccine.
Dr Scopes said: "The quality control
mechanisms are amazing. Basically it is a bad
idea to have anything but the virus itself in the
vaccine.
"You don't want to produce an immune
response to cow tissue - you want to produce
the biggest immune response possible to the
viruses, to make the vaccine effective."
The problems with one brand of poliovirus stem
from foetal calf serum which has been sourced
in the UK.
The theoretical risk is that if the serum was
drawn from a calf foetus carrying the proteins
thought to be the infective agent of BSE,
some of those proteins might remain in a
vaccine given orally to children.
The purification process used to remove
everything but the viruses renders this even
less likely.
****
"OH Really????"
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Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA
Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA
530-272-7306
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men (&
women) do nothing"...Edmund Burke
ANY INFO OBTAINED HERE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE
DECISION TO VACCINATE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE.
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